The disclosures herein relate generally to computer systems and more particularly to impact damping systems for peripheral devices in a computer system.
Peripheral devices such as high performance hard drives require rigid mounting to the chassis of a computer system to achieve optimum performance. The servo tracking performance is hindered by displacement of the disk drive unit in response to inertial forces associated with movement of the head actuator arms. Reducing, or preferably, eliminating movement of the disk drive body relative to the chassis of the computer system allows a desired string of data to be read from the disk drive more readily and accurately.
However, the force associated with mounting the disk drive against a rigid surface in a high-speed computer assembly operation results in high G-load impacts. If the impact is great enough, one or more of the heads in the disk drive may experience an impact-induced head crash. An impact-induced head crash occurs when one or more of the heads in the disk drive collide against the surface of an adjacent disk. A head crash may damage the head or the disk, resulting in reduced performance and reliability. The damage may result in immediate failure or undetected damage leading to a shortened operating life.
Attempts have been made at providing damping devices that protect against loads applied directly to the case of a hard disk drive. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,760,998 and 5,703,734 disclose hard disk drives that incorporate resilient members protruding from the exterior of the drive case to protect against impact loadings from flat drops. U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,092 discloses a hard disk drive that incorporates resilient members attached to protrude from the corners of the drive case to protect against the case being dropped on a corner.
Although attempts have been made to provide systems and techniques for damping impact loadings resulting from the disk drive being dropped prior to installation, none disclose a reliable, efficient and cost-effective damping system for minimizing damage associated with positioning the drive for attachment of retaining fasteners during the computer assembly process and for allowing a rigid mounting configuration. Accordingly, there is a need for an apparatus and method of assembly that overcomes the shortcomings of present mounting configurations and installation techniques for peripheral devices.